Peaceful Easy Feeling
’cause I gotta peaceful easy feeling
and I know you won’t let me down
’cause I’m already standing on the
ground
What could be better than an afternoon nap on a warm Fall day? The sunlight streaming through the window, followed by a gentle breeze. It doesn’t take much to follow these sensations back to childhood memories of carefree afternoons. It doesn’t take much more than a few peaceful, easy feelings to relive the days gone past.
As I awoke from my short nap, I had this sensation that I was in Colorado Springs. Before kids, Jennifer and I bought our first house – and life was pretty easy. I didn’t want to let go of that feeling – even as I realized reality. So, I just lay there and let my mind wander. I recalled our Colorado home, the view, the emotions, the memories. Then, without warning, my imagination took me even further back, to my childhood home in SE Portland. Again, lying on my bed after an afternoon nap – watching the sun stream through the window, and followed by a warm, Fall breeze.
Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. It is often triggered by sights, sounds, smells – an old photograph, a familiar meal, or a found object, long forgotten. These memories are like treasures, buried into the recesses of our mind, sometimes accessible, but too often forgotten. Innocence lost, wisdom gained, and a lifetime discerning the two.
As I watch my kids discover life and make their own memories, I’m struck by the idea that they don’t know the value their childhood. Or, as my grandmother would say, “youth is wasted on the young.”
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind
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Confessing my Dad Attitude 
Gary, this is very moving. I resonate with this, and I loved that song. It doesn’t take much, sometimes to take us back….way back.
But I hope that I have learned that while memories are good, what is most important is to live in the now, to feel the warmeth of relationships, and events now as they happen, and not wait to enjoy them in our mind years from now.
Keep up the good work.
Rubyjean
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Your grandma is wise. We spend out youth trying to grow up to fast and then rest of our adulthood trying to recapture our youth…
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In turn, my Dad would say, “Don’t wish your life away. Don’t wish you were 16 so you can drive; 18 so you can be free; 21 so you can drink; 25 for lower insurance rates; 35 so you’ll be respected; et cetera.”
It was good advice – but I didn’t understand it till I was 35.
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Just found your blog, and really enjoyed reading the posts. I loved your stones in a jar photo, and thought it went perfectly as a visual for my post today on standing stones (a contemporary treatment) as a spiritual practice. I’d like to post it at my blog with a link here. Shoot me a message, if you’re not okay with this. I hope you can visit my site. Blessings to you!
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